Flowers At The Gate
by Spots on a Pony
Summary: After the events of The Dark Gate, Hoss has another talk with Adam.


Bonanza Bit #342

**Prompt: Flowers**

Not really a WHN for The Dark Gate, just a little continuation of it. Hoss and Adam have another talk about the death of Ross Marquette.

Flowers At The Gate

By

Spots On A Pony

It was almost a month after the deaths of Ross and Delphina Marquette. Hoss was worried, even though Adam knew that it wasn't his fault that Ross and Delphina died, he was still feeling guilty. So after watching him pick at another meal, Hoss decided that it was time to have another talk with his older brother.

Once outside, Hoss found Adam leaning against one of the porch posts, alternately kicking at the dirt and watching the clouds. As Hoss leaned against another post, using it to scratch his back, Adam said, "I should have been able to do something to have helped Ross. I should have seen something was wrong months ago."

"There weren't anything you could have done for him," Hoss said gently, "even if you knowed that something was wrong. He was sick in a way that no one could see or cure."

Adam sighed, "I know that, but. . ."

"Look at it this way," Hoss continued. "Remember that dog we had jus before you left for college?"

Adam nodded, his eyes brightening at the memories brought to mind.

"Remember what a good dog he was," Hoss added, "really smart, always trying to Please, and never made the same mistake twice. Remember how every once in a while, he'd come home hurt from tangling with some critter and we had to doctor him up?"

Adam nodded as he remembered.

"Now what if one of those critters he tangled with had hydraphobie," Hoss continued, "an' we didn't know about it until he started acting funny. What would we have done?"

"We would have tried doctoring him or correcting him when he was doing things he shouldn't have," Adam said thoughtfully, wondering what Hoss was getting at. "Then when it became clear that he had hydrophobia, then either Pa or I would have shot him."

"Why," Hoss asked softly.

"Because he could hurt someone," Adam replied with a snarl, "and," then softly, "because he was suffering. It wouldn't have been his fault that he was sick."

"That's right," Hoss told him. "It wouldn't have been his fault for getting sick. He still would have wanted to be a good dog, it would have been the sickness that made him bad, an' because of that he was suffering. You or Pa shooting him would have been stopping his suffering, an' he would have been glad. Jes' like Ross was."

"Ross didn't have hydrophobia," Adam replied, giving Hoss a hard look.

"But he was sick, with something that no one could cure," Hoss said, "he wanted to be good. He wanted to be your friend. He didn't want to do those bad things; rustle our cattle, rob the stage, kill those people and beat Del to death. But that sickness made him do those things, an' there weren't nothing he could do to make himself stop doing them. So he was suffering too. Your bullet ended his suffering."

"But my bullet brought him back," Adam replied, anguish in his voice. "He knew me. He asked about Del. He would have been good again!"

"He was still suffering," Hoss told him firmly. "Even if he would have recovered from your shooting him and stayed good, he still would have been suffering. How would you think he would have felt when he found out about all of the bad things he did while he was sick? Even if you was able to prove he was sick while he did all of those bad things, he still would have had to answer for them. Maybe he would have been sent to one of those places for sick people like him, instead of being hung. How would he have felt about that? He still would have been suffering, especially when he found out about what he did to Del. So you kept him from suffering any more than what he was."

Adam got a thoughtful look on his face as he digested this information. He sighed, "how did you get so wise big brother? Though it just doesn't seem right to compare the life of a human with the life of an animal. But both humans and animals suffer the same, and with animals, we can put them out of their suffering with out really thinking about it. It's so much harder to do it with humans especially if it happens to be a very good friend."

They stood together for a while then Hoss returned to the house to see if Hop Sing had any extra pie. Something shifted in Adam's thinking and he came to a decision. The next day he rode out to Ross and Del's graves, and placed a bouquet of flowers on each.

The End

12/5/09


End file.
